South Africa Promises To Ease Up On Blacks

``within a matter of months`` the white-minority government would ease some of its restrictions on the rights and mobility of blacks, but he said the country`s black majority probably would never enjoy rights equal to those of U.S. citizens.

Meeting with reporters at the National Press Club, Fourie asked that South Africa be viewed in the context of Africa, not of the world`s better-known democracies.

``One thing is overlooked,`` he said. ``South Africa lives and operates in an environment of Africa. South Africa cannot operate as if it is a state of this great United States; it cannot operate as if it is part of Western Europe. We live in different circumstances. We`ve got to take into account what is happening in Africa and around us.``

Fourie`s embassy in Washington has been the scene since November of protests against his country`s racial policies. Singer Stevie Wonder and 47 other people were arrested there Thursday, as hundreds have been before.

Elaborating on recent government announcements in South Africa, Fourie said blacks would soon be allowed to move around freely and would not be forced to move to rural ``homelands.`` He said people would have the right to socialize or marry across racial lines.

``Influx control, citizenship and also what is known here as removals

--these problems . . . in my opinion, will be dealt with and resolved, not in a matter of years but rather in a matter of months,`` Fourie said.

The ambassador gave the impression that many of the old laws that help maintain white dominance over blacks, who make up 73 percent of the population, are crumbling. He said some restrictions have been relaxed in the interest of both black and white South Africans, not in response to international pressure or increased U.S. efforts against apartheid.

The picture Fourie tried to portray of South Africa starkly contrasted with a State Department report on human rights issued a day earlier.

In its annual assessment of human rights around the world, the department said: ``South Africa is a multiracial country whose laws codify the doctrine of apartheid (racial separation) under which the white minority dominates national political institutions and defines the basic rights and obligations of people according to their racial and ethnic orgin.``